Jenny Nuccio: From Dream to Reality with Imani Collective

“Trust me,” she said. “We’re going to build something beautiful.” And they did.

Jenny Nuccio is a dreamer.  She is full of wild ideas about empowering overlooked and underserved women and is on a mission to show the world that we can “own what we’re made for.” This dream took her all the way to the Mtepeni Village in Kenya when she was 18 and then again every few years until she settled there in 2013.  

Did I mention that she just gave birth to her youngest child four months ago? But that hasn’t slowed her down. In fact, her family is currently driving through the U.S. to personally meet with supporters and investors. Needless to say, she is the driving force behind Imani Collective, a start-up community of artisans based in Kenya – about fifty Kenyan men and women in the Mtepeni Village and Mombasa – and Dallas, Texas.

“When I was 18, I went on a missions trip to Kenya and even though I was in school at the time, I knew that I had to go back one day,” said Jenny.  “It was really the Holy Spirit saying ‘go back there, there is something more for you there.’ So in 2010, I went and I worked with a couple there who were starting a school and that’s when I originally met my women. I was helping to build the child sponsorship profiles for this school and would do home visits almost every day. While I was visiting the homes in the village, I realized that the most disadvantaged kids were coming from the homes where the mothers were single, widowed, or disabled. They were sent home from school even though it was only $2 a month. They just didn’t have it.”

That’s when something started stirring in Jenny’s heart. She knew that she had to do more to change the generational cycle of poverty. She was determined to break the cycle for these women who she had come to care for so deeply. That’s when Imani Collective was born. In 2011, she started the collective with the intention of serving other local organizations in various countries. Then in 2012, she spent three months living in the village and laid the groundwork for the collective to flourish in Kenya.